A GOP House leadership aide dismissed the letter in an email. "Secretary Perez' 'offer' was basically, 'Hey, enact the whole White House domestic agenda - including UI, comprehensive immigration, and the President's version of tax reform - and we'll call it a "deal" - OK?' It was completely unserious. Boehner has been clear since before Christmas about what we would need to see from the White House — and they are just not acting."

Boehner, R-Ohio, repeatedly has demanded that the president come to him with a new jobs offer before he'll consider allowing a vote on an extension of emergency unemployment benefits, which expired in December.

It'd be harder to blow off a call from the president, of course, than Perez. Even Vladimir Putin still takes Obama's calls.

The White House last week threatened to veto a House corporate tax cut bill, citing its impact on the deficit, while noting that the Senate-passed unemployment extension bill was paid for and cost a much smaller amount of money.

But the administration has not played true hardball on an unemployment extension. Obama hasn't made his signature on any budget-related item or GOP priority contingent on passage of emergency unemployment benefits.

Obama signed a two-year budget law late last year that did not include the unemployment extension; he signed a farm bill; he signed a one-year extension for doctors whose reimbursements would have been slashed under Medicare, and he signed an omnibus appropriations bill.

The clock meanwhile is running on the Senate-passed five-month unemployment extension. The retroactive bill would run out in June.